May 15, 2017

Star Wars Dark Side 5k

I haven't done a 5k in a while, and I haven't done a runDisney 5k in what seems like forever. But Kris's dad wanted to take a shot at a Walt Disney World 5k, and asked us to join him, so we did.

He decided on the Star Wars Dark Side 5k. This is one of the best race weekends that runDisney offers. It always has a great vibe. Since the race was on Friday, I decided to make a long weekend out of it, and took the bus up on Thursday to go to the expo and get our bibs.

Thursday we hit up the expo and got our bibs and some merch. I got us a room in Disney Springs, so we could sleep in as much as we could before the race. Thankfully it started at 6am, and not 5:30. But Kris's dad wanted to make sure we got there with plenty of time, so he came to pick us up at about 4:15 and with our Leia buns ready, we headed over to Epcot.

We got to the start area and headed to the corrals. And hung out until it was time to start.

And I'm totally digging the new corral waves send off. It keeps the people really moving to the start. There is way less waiting for your corral to start, plus lessens up the crowding. This is a total win runDisney. Definitely keep this.

Kris and I set up an easy goal for this race. We'd run (no intervals) from character stop to character stop to get all of the pics. We set off with a little walk to start and then it was a run to the first line. I stayed at the end of the line, as Kris went ahead to see who was there. It was the ewoks, and we decided to skip that long line for them.

The next stop was around the back employee entrance to Epcot. It was the imperial throne. As we waited for this stop, we were able to see Kris's Dad walk by. We finally got on the throne and took our pic.

Then we ran into the World Showcase. I've run a bunch of races through Epcot, but never did we come in next to Mexico (all the way at one end). It was pretty cool to be able to run so much of the "world." We even caught up to Dad around Africa, and were able to snap a selfie.

We heard rumblings through the crowd that R2D2 was in America. We knew that was our next stop. The line was LOOONG. But this was the point of the race for us, so we waited. And got some pretty cute pics with R2.

R2's line took forever, but then we went out through the rest of the World Showcase. There were tons of photographers, but I seemed to miss them all, or I thought I did, as I passed them. But Kris told me about one coming up, so I threw up my hands and hoped for the best. Best race pic ever!

We headed out the international gateway and looped around and saw Chewbacca. Since Chewy is usually available for pics in Hollywood Studios, we skipped him. Then, we ran back into the park and into Future World. After we rounded The Living Seas, Kris and I took our only walk break, and of course there were photographers there!

Pretty fast after that we were heading to Spaceship Earth and back out to the parking lot and the finish line. It's odd to me that the 5ks aren't timed. There wasn't even a timing mat to see when I really finished, but hey, I did it.

I got my water, and the all important bling. The medals for the 5ks are actually metal now, and the design was so cool.

We headed out of the finishing area got the famous runDisney food boxes. Now, I'm gonna get real here, this processed cheese and salty chips are life after a race. I'm so spoiled by this. I need something salty when I'm done with a race now! LOL

Since there are characters available after the race, we got in line for Darth Vader, cause it is the Dark Side after all. He was HUGE.

Star Wars Dark Side is such a fun race weekend. This 5k was great the course was through a LOT of Epcot. I don't even thing in a 10k I had that much park time. Even though I only did the 5k this weekend it was still so much fun. Everyone is in such a great mood and looking to have fun. Having done lots of runDisney races Star Wars Dark Side is def my current favorite.